Workplace reviews and discussion: 永逢企業股份有限公司

The interview process was fairly friendly; it seemed difficult to find any other advantages regarding the job.

A family-owned business with a somewhat outdated office. Upon arrival, job applicants are first given an A4 English questionnaire. The questions are all very poorly designed. The first asks applicants to describe the problems or shortcomings that their former supervisors criticized them for over the past four years. The second asks them to describe at least three examples of things they handled in the past that ended in failure. The third asks them to name the three things they fear most about this job. The fourth asks what shortcomings they still need to improve. There are many questions, probably five or six in total, all asking applicants to describe how bad they are, how others have criticized them, how many things they have done wrong, how inadequate their abilities are, and so on. I really wonder what a company that asks questions like these is thinking. How can they expect applicants to convince them to hire them by saying how terrible they are? Besides, there are so many questions that answering them already amounts to writing an English essay. Is this really appropriate to do during an interview?

Later, a female manager around thirty-five years old came in for the interview. The first thing she said was that the work of their international trade staff was very, very simple, so a salary of more than NT$30,000 was already considered very high. However, when she explained the job duties, they included procurement, attending exhibitions, developing suppliers, developing new products, domestic and international business trips, going to customers’ sites to photograph quality problems, conducting product training for the sales staff of all branches, handling bank document negotiations, going to inspection agencies, going to warehouses to inspect goods, handling shipping and customs declarations, and knowing how to ride a motorcycle—preferably also knowing how to drive. Applicants without a motorcycle were expected to buy one, since the company had no shared vehicle. Occasionally, the employee would also have to serve as a driver and translator. Excellent English was required, and applicants had to give a self-introduction entirely in English and answer all questions in English on site. I have never seen an international trade position at a company that required handling so many tasks. They also explicitly stated that the person needed to be able to withstand heavy workloads.

The entire interview took a very long time. They asked everything they could test and everything they could ask, and I even had a personal interview with the owner’s wife. The salary had already been agreed upon, but they insisted on scheduling a second interview. When I asked what else needed to be discussed in the second interview, they could not give a clear answer and only said it was just to chat. They said they would call later to inform me of the interview time. In the end, it really was just a pretext: they did not call at the agreed time and never contacted me again. Looking at the comments below, it seems others have encountered the same situation.

Overall, I think it was probably for the best that I did not join the company. It felt like a very traditional family business where outside employees are expected to take on many different roles, while the salary is not particularly high. During the interview, I also learned that the employees there might mostly be quite old, their ways of working were very outdated, there was no SOP, and the documents might be in complete disarray. Not being hired may have been a good thing.